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<\/a>\nSoldiers enjoying their delicious hardtack!<\/em><\/p>\n
Meat rations were, if anything, even worse. “Fresh” meat was often flyblown before it reached the men. Preserved meat – pickled beef and “salt junk” pork – was, at best, foul smelling and awful tasting, and, at worst, deadly. Varying degrees of food poisoning were commonplace among Civil War soldiers, though it is impossible to determine whether the dysentery endemic to camps was due more to bad food, bad sanitation, or some combination of the two. Fresh fruit and vegetables were so rare in the enlisted man’s diet that scurvy posed a serious threat to both sides. When the Union soldier could stand no more of hardtack and rancid meat, and the Confederate soldier finally tired of cornbread (in good times) or starvation (in bad), there was the option of foraging – a polite term for filching poultry, hogs, sweet potatoes, flour, meal, and the like from local farms, homes, and stores.<\/p>\n
Hunting was rarely seen as a viable means of obtaining food. For one thing, game in the vicinity of a camp or battle tended to be scarce. There was also the chance of getting captured or killed by the enemy. More to the point, however, is the fact that few Civil War soldiers ever got good enough at handling a gun to bag a meal. True, they were trained to shoot in the Army, but with arms and ammunition in short supply (especially in the South), they were often trained using sticks instead of muskets. If muskets were available, they were most likely of the aged and obsolescent smoothbore kind, and ammunition for target practice was issued in a most miserly way.<\/p>\n
General U.S. Grant witnessed one target practice of the 14th Illinois at which 157 of 160 shots fired were misses. That was typical. It has been calculated that the average Civil War soldier consumed 900 pounds of lead and 240 pounds of powder for each of the enemy he killed. Often, it seems, in the heat of battle, soldiers went through the cumbersome process of loading their weapons only to fail at last to fire them. Some 27,500 muskets were collected on the field after Gettysburg. Of these, more than 12,000 contained two charges. Another 6,000 contained three to ten charges and balls. One was found stuffed with no fewer than twenty-three rounds.<\/p>\n
Culled from:\u00a0Portraits of the Civil War<\/a><\/p>\n I came across a recipe for hardtack if you’d like to try it.\u00a0 (Oh come on, you know you want to!!!) <\/p>\n<\/a>
\nCivil War “Sharpshooters”<\/em><\/p>\n
\nCivil War Recipe: Hardtack (1861)<\/a><\/p>\nDeath Scene Du Jour!<\/h3>\n